The Winners: Seven’s night squashed Nine’s new programming, assisted in part by Ten with MasterChef and the F1 Turkish Grand Prix  at 9pm on ONE  (which made Ten’s overall performance look better than it was).

A poor night for Nine. Good for viewers though with some choice.

Ten says MasterChef beat Dancing with the Stars from 7.30pm until 8.30pm in All People and the demos. Ten won 16 to 39s.

  1. Seven News (6pm) — 1.588 million
  2. Dancing with the Stars (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.505 million
  3. MasterChef Australia (Ten) (7.30pm) — 1.503 million
  4. Nine News (6pm) — 1.314 million
  5. In Their Footsteps (Nine) (6.30) (debut) — 1.034 million

The Losers: Blood Brothers (see below).

News & CA: Nine won the news in Sydney with a good NRL game as the lead in. It didn’t help in Brisbane. Seven won in Melbourne and the other states with an AFL game as a lead in.

The Bolt Report debuted on Ten, the 163,000 who watched it at 10am and the 123,000 who watched the “encore” at whatever time last night (not actually in the guides) would have pleased Ten. But the demo for the primary broadcast at 10am was overwhelmingly old: 62,000 of the 163,000 were over 55, and with another 58,000 in 25 to 54s (but at the older end), saw over 70% of the audience outside Ten’s core demos.

And 53,000 of the audience was in Melbourne (Mr Bolt’s column is in the Melbourne Herald Sun). 52,000 of the audience was in Brisbane and just 19,000 in Sydney — which is the biggest TV and media market in the country. In Sydney it was 4th in the 10am to 10.30am timeslot, in other markets it was mostly second, which wasn’t a bad result.

Now the telling question, will viewers return next week having seen it once? And the content?

Meanwhile, Meet The Press at 10.30pm had 98,000, its best audience for years. Will this program be strangled of big interviews, with Mr Abbot for example?

  1. Seven News (6pm) — 1.588 million
  2. Nine News (6pm) — 1.314 million
  3. 60 Minutes (Nine, 7.30 – 8.30 pm) — 943,000
  4. ABC News (7pm) — 744,000
  5. Ten News (5pm) — 461,000
  6. Ten Evening News (6pm) — 455,000
  7. Dateline (SBS) (8.30pm) — 239,000
  8. SBS News (6.30pm) — 202,000

In the morning:

  1. Weekend Sunrise (Seven) (8am) — 409,000
  2. Weekend Today (Nine) (8am) — 303,000
  3. Landline (ABC) (Noon) — 188,000
  4. Insiders (ABC) (9am) — 172,000
  5. The Bolt Report (Ten) (10am) (debut) — 163,000
  6. Offsiders (ABC) (10.30am) — 148,000
  7. Inside Business (ABC) (10am) — 127,000
  8. The Bolt Report (Ten) (4.30pm ) (repeat) — 123,000
  9. Meet The Press (Ten) (10.30am) — 98,000

The Stats:

  • FTA: Seven (3 channels) with 33.4% from Ten (3) on 25.4%, Nine (3) was on 25.1%, the ABC (4) was on 11.1% and SBS (2) ended with 5.0%.
  • Main Channel: Seven with 26.7% from Nine on 18.9%, Ten was on 17.3%, ABC 1, 9.2% and SBS ONE, 4.3%.
  • Digital: ONE with the F 1 race from Turkey (320,000 from 9pm) averaged 5.1%, from GO on 4.0%, 7TWO was on 3.4%, 7mate was on 3.3%, Eleven was on 3.0%, Gem, 2.3%, ABC 2, 1.0%, SBS TWO, 0.7%, News 24, 0.6% and ABC 3, 0.3%. That’s an FTA share of total of 24.0% in prime time last night.
  • Pay TV: Seven won with 27.8% for its 3 channels, from Ten (3) on 21.2%, Nine (3) was on 20.9%, Pay TV (100 plus channels) was on 13.8%, the ABC, (4) was on 9.2% and SBS (2) ended with 4.2%. The 15 FTA channels had an 86.2% for prime time TV viewing last night, made up of 20.7% for the digital channels and 65.5% for the five main channels.
  • Regional: Prime/7Qld won with a share of 34.3% for their three channels), from WIN/NBN (3) on 29.1%, SC Ten (3) was on 20.8%, the ABC (4) was on 11.1%, and SBS (2) ended with 4.8%. 7TWO won the digitals with 4.6% from GO on 4.5%, 7Mate on 4.1% and ONE with 3.6% (The F -1 Grand Prix wasn’t as popular in regional areas.). That was an FTA total share of viewing last night of 28.0%.

Major Markets: MasterChef was Ten’s only stand out last night, but couldn’t help the network past Nine on the East Coast. In Adelaide and Perth it pushed past Nine whose line up didn’t impress local viewers, especially Adelaide. Seven beat Nine and Ten in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane overall and the main channels. in Adelaide and Perth it was Seven from Nine and Ten. ONE with the Turkish Grand Prix won the digitals in Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth. 7TWO won Melbourne.

(All shares on the basis of combined overnight 6pm to midnight All People)

Glenn Dyer’s comments: Seven won All People, Ten won all the demos, and then more, Nine was down the track. Seven also won the digitals.

Interestingly 6.30 with George Negus had a very solid 462,000 viewers on Friday night which is normally a very low viewing night (as the 167,000 for the 10.30pm repeat confirmed).

ACA had 868,000 viewers nationally on Friday. The Biggest Loser final and winner, plus MasterChef dominated the demos for the week for Ten. It was Ten’s best week of the year, but it still needs one more program at 8.30pm on at least three nights to help it.

So Nine’s comeback failed on the first night: In Their Footsteps at 6.30pm, 1.034 million which is more than OK, but will viewers return next week?

Blood Brothers at 8.30pm: 803,000 viewers. Not good enough for two hours of drama of questionable quality. Lisa McCune played Crown prosecutor Margaret Cuneen like she plays the lead role in Sea Patrol. One dimensional. And why was the Crown prosecutor given such a big role? Don’t Crown Prosecutors just oversee and prosecute the Crown case, once it has been assembled by the investigating police and the Department of Public Prosecutions in NSW? Dancing with the Stars and Castle beat Blood Brothers and it was lucky to get past Hawaii Five -O on Ten which is not brain food anyway.

Dancing with the Stars was tired, but still successful. Moby Dick on the ABC, weak. Merlin returned on Ten at 6.30pm, soap in tin. MasterChef selected the final 24. A good test dish. Now for the adventure.

With 563,000 viewers in regional areas, Dancing with the Stars started its 2011 season with 2.06 million. MasterChef had 459,000 viewers in regional areas and the national audience was 1.962 million. Dancing with the Stars‘ return clipped MasterChef‘s audience last night. Next week?

TONIGHT: The ABC’s News and Current Affairs Wall of Words, from 7pm to 11.35pm. Take your pick. MasterChef on Ten. 6.30 with George Negus and The 7pm Project as well. After trying hard last night, Nine pulls up short with The Big Bang Theory , three episodes, one fresh at 7.30pm then fading CSI. Seven has No Ordinary Family. It will prove to be very ordinary.

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports